Comments on: Too Much of a Good Thing: The Thing About Events at Middlebury http://sites.middlebury.edu/onedeansview/2008/04/11/too-much-of-a-good-thing-the-thing-about-events-at-middlebury/ Mon, 03 Jun 2013 06:52:15 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 By: Terry Simpkins http://sites.middlebury.edu/onedeansview/2008/04/11/too-much-of-a-good-thing-the-thing-about-events-at-middlebury/comment-page-1/#comment-118 Terry Simpkins Thu, 29 May 2008 21:30:06 +0000 http://deanofthecollege.wordpress.com/?p=33#comment-118 Dear Dean Spears,
You may already be aware of this, but I thought I would point out to you a resource here at Midd that has been underway for a few years and has been growing steadily, namely, the Digital Lecture Archive maintained by LIS. This can be readily accessed on campus by typing “go/dla” in your browser’s URL window, and from offcampus by going to:
http://tinyurl.com/6ddy3k (don’t worry, this takes you to a Middlebury.edu domain).

Currently, we have 184 lectures available for online viewing in this resource, and we add to it every month. Not every lecture on campus is added to it (obviously) — primarily due to staffing and copyright reasons — but there are many interesting lectures available through DLA. Check it out.

A related site, to which Middlebury contributes content, is the University Channel, hosted by Princeton U.: http://uc.princeton.edu/main/
Here, you can see not only many lectures from Middlebury (all of which are in our DLA), but also contributions from many other prestigious colleges and universities. Best of all, you can watch everything from home in your slippers.

Cheers,
Terry

]]> By: Kevin Hurley http://sites.middlebury.edu/onedeansview/2008/04/11/too-much-of-a-good-thing-the-thing-about-events-at-middlebury/comment-page-1/#comment-117 Kevin Hurley Fri, 09 May 2008 14:22:00 +0000 http://deanofthecollege.wordpress.com/?p=33#comment-117 I agree with those who feel there is a level hyperactivity in the numerous events hosted on campus and I appreciate your introduction of the topic because it has created an ethos of more, and more, extracurricular, “extralaborious,” expectations.

It’s very impressive that Middlebury, although somewhat remote, benefits from the larger world on campus but there are downsides, seldom spoken, with excessive offerings and commitments:

- – I often feel there isn’t a critical mass, certainly campus-wide, for significant SHARED ideas with the surfeit of events.

- The random nature of the topics and their relevance sometimes result in a “Jack of all trades; Master of none” perception.

- Passive listening is such a large part of the education methodology, it surprises me that it needs to be added to such an extent.

- There are significant costs, direct and indirect (particularly in individual and staff organization) that diminish other aspects of the College.

- Ultimately, what are the real outcomes? How much of the speaker participation is acted on before and after their talk i.e., their books read, their ideas discussed, the relevance of their talk to the coursework, or because many of these are campus-wide, the relevance to Middlebury’s mission?

Finally, I’ve come around to the idea that there are too many ‘talkers’ such that significant ideas are diluted. There is an obvious oversupply of speakers – because it’s lucrative – because it’s done with repetition – because it’s done for a generic audience, etc.

Good topic for discussion – and we haven’t even added the arts, athletics, film, student presentations, etc. that compete with one another.

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